The sugar was boiling in the kettles, and while it boiled the boys and
girls played "snap," and "eleven hand," and "thimble," and "blindfold,"
and another old play which some of our older people will remember:
"Oh! Sister Phoebe, how merry were we,
When we sat under the juniper tree--
The juniper tree-I-O."
And when the sugar had boiled down into candy they emptied it into
greased saucers, or as the mountain folks called them, "greased
sassers," and set it out to cool; and when it had cooled each boy and
girl took a saucer; and they pulled the taffy out and patted it and
rolled it till it hung well together; and then they pulled it out a foot
long; they pulled it out a yard long; and they doubled it back, and
pulled it out; and when it began to look like gold the sweethearts
paired off and consolidated their taffy and pulled against each other.
They pulled it out and doubled it back, and looped it over, and pulled
it out; and sometimes a peachblow cheek touched a bronzed one; and
sometimes a sweet little voice spluttered out; "you Jack;" and there was
a suspicious smack like a cow pulling her foot out of stiff mud. They
pulled the candy and laughed and frolicked; the girls got taffy on their
hair--the boys got taffy on their chins; the girls got taffy on their
waists--the boys got taffy on their coat sleeves. They pulled it till
it was as bright as a moonbeam, and then they platted it and coiled it
into fantastic shapes and set it out in the crisp air to cool. Then the
courting in earnest began. They did not court then as the young folks
court now. The young man led his sweetheart back into a dark corner
and sat down by her, and held her hand for an hour, and never said
a word. But it resulted next year in more cabins on the hillsides and
in the hollows; and in the years that followed the cabins were full of
candy-haired children who grew up into a race of the best, the bravest,
and the noblest people the sun in heaven ever shone upon.
In the bright, bright hereafter, when all the joys of all the ages are
gathered up and condensed into globules of transcendent ecstacy, I doubt
whether there will be anything half so sweet as were the candy-smeared,
ruby lips of the country maidens to the jeans-jacketed swains who tasted
them at the candy-pulling in the happy long ago.
(Sung by Gov. Taylor to air of "Down on the Farm.")
In the happy long ago,
When I used to draw the bow,
At the old log cabin hearthstone all aglow,
Oh! the fiddle laughed and sung,
And the puncheons fairly rung,
With the clatter of the shoe soles long ago.
Oh! the merry swings and whirls
Of the happy boys and girls,
In the good old time cotillion long ago!
Oh! they danced the highland fling,
And they cut the pigeon wing,
To the music of the fiddle and the bow.
But the mischief and the mirth,
And the frolics 'round the hearth,
And the flitting of the shadows to and fro,
Like a dream have passed away--
Now I'm growing old and gray,
And I'll soon hang up the fiddle and the bow.
When a few more notes I've made,
When a few more tunes I've played,
I'll be sleeping where the snowy daises grow.
But my griefs will all be o'er
When I reach the happy shore,
Where I'll greet the friends who loved me long ago.
Oh! how sweet, how precious to us all are the memories of the happy long
ago!
[Illustration: THE OLD VIRGINIA REEL.]